Three Tiers, or Three Tears

July 24th is a holiday in Utah, and thus the perfect day for me to spend working on making a wedding cake for the next day. I was glad to have the full-day because this was going to be my first attempt at a three-tier cake! I was a bit nervous, but confident that it would turn out well.

I regret that I didn't take more pictures of the step-by-step process that went into this cake, so you'll just have to make due with my comical descriptions!

Step One: Obsess over the fact that I moved to a new apartment with an oven that was new back in 1960. If one half of the cake was slightly darker than the other half, the bride didn't seem to notice.

Step Two: Get a last-minute email from the bride, deciding to change the base color of the cake from white to an undefined "teal/light green" color. Freak out and then go buy teal food color, luck out and magically match the color of the cake perfectly to the ribbons at the reception.

Step Three: Watch movies on the projector while you frost and stack the cake.

Step Four: Freak out because you don't have a good way to pound a dowl through two layers of cardboard cake bases. Accept sensible suggestion of husband to hammer in the knife sharpener her pulled out of your knife rack. Give him a hug of joy as it works beautifully!

Step Five: Stick stacked/undecorated cake in fridge while you take a break and go see The Great Gatsby at the dollar theater. Come back feeling depressed, but refreshed and ready to go back to work!

Step Six: Laboriously spend 2 1/2 hours piping Korean-style flowers and vines around the bottom two tiers of the cake. Bride has agreed to provide some kind of cake topper to make the top tier look less awkward.

Step Seven: Naively believe bride about the cake topper.

Step Eight: Pick up your Korean cousin, as well as her extremely upset with the world friend, not only making you late to deliver the cake, but also providing you with a chorus of Korean anger while you drive.

Step Nine: Arrive at reception let, with most of the guests arrived. Hunt down the bride, only to learn that she has NOT brought a cake topper.

Step Ten: Firmly explain to the bride that the cake looks dumb without something on top and tell her you are going to put some piping on the top tier to make it match.

Step Eleven: Kneel awkwardly in the middle of the reception room, piping crooked flowers and curly cues onto the cake. Thus destroying your two and half hours of hard work the night before making sure every line was perfectly straight. All the guests stare at you, little girls won't leave your side because they are too entranced.
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Step Twelve: Take a few poor quality snapshots with your phone of your (almost) masterpiece while the bride and groom start greeting guests. Sigh with sadness that this will be the best picture that you get, since they had no photographer for the reception. The only other picture posted to Facebook was a blurry, yellowed version of your work of art that whites out half of it.

 Step Thirteen: Return to your day job, just in time to not go over your lunch break. Vow to get someone else to deliver your cakes next time!